A pharmacy in Loudoun County, Virginia, has been removed from the state’s vaccination program after a pharmacist mistakenly vaccinated 112 children with adult doses of COVID-19, state health officials said on Wednesday.
Aldie’s Ted Pharmacy told the Virginia Department of Health that their business accidentally provided children with dilute doses. Pfizer The vaccine is for people 12 years and older. Children who receive the wrong dose are between 5 and 11 years old.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Stipulates that children should receive “age-appropriate doses.” However, although the child received a dilute dose of the adult vaccine, the CDC stated that parents should still wait 21 days and monitor for side effects before giving the child an appropriate dose.
According to reports, these side effects are the same as any normal condition of the COVID vaccine and may include fever, chills, pain and fatigue.
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One parent, Dasha Hermosilla, told WRC-TV that although she was worried about her child being vaccinated incorrectly, the pharmacist allegedly told her that it was okay for her daughter to receive adult doses of the vaccine.
In addition to the different doses marked on the vials, the caps of the vaccine doses for children and adults have different colors for easy identification.
After a quick search on the Internet, Hermosilla could not find any medical information that could confirm the pharmacist, and pointed out “[nothing online] Say you can change [the vaccines].”
“I have this pit in my stomach, what did they just do to my daughter?” she added. “There are dozens of families who don’t even know this is a problem.”
Many other parents also opposed Ted Pharmacy’s actions, saying that the company downplayed the wrong dosage. “The way they treat individuals is really like,’Oh, it’s no big deal,'” Hermosilla continued.
According to reports, the pharmacy called these incidents errors and apologized for the “inconvenience” caused to customers.
According to reports, the Virginia Pharmacy Commission has also launched an investigation into the matter, but this information has not been confirmed. However, the Loudoun County Health Department did issue a statement stating that Ted Pharmacy will no longer be authorized to administer the COVID-19 vaccine.
The health department said in a letter to parents: “The pharmacy that vaccinated your child with Pfizer’s COVID-19 last week has been removed from the state and federal COVID-19 vaccination programs.”
According to reports, the pharmacy also voluntarily returned the remaining vaccine stock to the state health department. It is not clear whether pharmacies will be allowed to resume vaccination in the future.
On its website, Ted Pharmacy refers to itself as a “community staple” and “by providing fast and personalized services, it proudly assumes the role of improving community healthcare.” This pharmacy opened in 2018 and has an average of 4.3 stars (out of 5 stars) in online reviews.
Weekly newspaper The CDC has been contacted for comments.
